Halfway between a rock show and an all-out bar fight, G.G. Allin brought his band to the 6th Street rendezvous last Wednesday night for a set of the most crude and violent masochistic excess possible without getting arrested.
Allin wasted no time getting down to business, opening the show by defecating on stage and hurling most of his shit out into the audience, smearing what was left over his genitals and thighs. When he wasn't singing he kept himself busy with the microphone, repeatedly bashing it into his forehead until he drew blood and, at one point, sticking it a good two or three inches up his ass. Halfway into the first song, "I'm a Motherfucker," he threw his mike stand about 20 feet out from the stage, almost knocking an unwary fan unconscious.
In fact, he pretty much threw everything he could get his hands on into the audience, from barstools to himself. The audience seemed to feed off this energy, and at times there were as many as four or five fistfights going on in front of the stage. The only serious injury, however, was to Allin's potential NEA grant status.
Allin himself, however, looked somewhat worse for wear. He still had bandages over various parts of his body, and was virtually covered with scars. These were apparently vestiges of a San Diego performance that injured him badly enough to postpone the originally scheduled Sunday night show while he rested up in the hospital. "Most bands wouldn't have even played after just getting out of the hospital," he said. "We wanted to get our fuckin' money."
Allin had vowed to commit suicide onstage in October of '90, but a recent two-year incarceration in the Detroit State Penitentiary forced him to postpone the date to October of '92.
There's a good chance he'll be coming back through before then, for those of you who missed the show. "I'm going to tour 'til I die," he told a small group of fans afterward. "What else is there?"
Asked if his performances had changed since his incarceration, he replied: "They're more intense. I'm a lot more dangerous now than before I went to jail."
Sean Kennerly
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